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Lawn warfare: Light Strike brings laser tag back home

The new Light Strike series of guns offers a modern take on laser tag, which …

When I think of laser tag, I think of all the times as a kid I was warned about playing with the plastic guns outside for fear that the police would see the "realistic" weapon and shoot me dead in panic. These days, people mostly play laser tag in dark mini-mall rooms filled with generic techno, but WowWee wants to bring the world of futuristic faux weapons back to your house with its new line of Light Strike guns and accessories. Readers have already started asking me about the Light Strike gear, and there was only one way to provide a solid answer: it was time to suit up and fight a future war in my backyard.

What I found was a product line that had some neat ideas and much promise, but the various guns and their accessories didn't play together as nicely as I would have liked. Still, if you pick and choose your purchases carefully, there is fun to be had.

Promotional video

The world of Light Strikers

I've been able to play with two guns so far, the Striker GAP 24 (MSRP $29.99) and the Assault Striker SR 143 (MSRP $39.99). They're very different blasters, and they both do some interesting things. Let's start with the smaller of the two: the GAP 24.

The gun takes 4 AA batteries. It has a power switch on top of the case; below that you have four buttons, one to choose teams, one to adjust the volume, one to use your shield, and one to choose your weapon. To select a team, simply hold the button down and the LEDs near the barrel of the gun will change color. There are four different colors to choose from, so everyone playing just needs to set their gun to the correct team color.

The three red lights on the back of the gun are your health, and the different selectable weapons all take away different amounts of health. When you lose all three lights, your gun flashes and you can't fire until you hold the shield and trigger to "respawn."

The handgun

The GAP 24 is one flat gun. It's comfortable in the hands (although the grips are designed for smaller paws) and the details are on the printed stickers on the sides. It's a very striking look, almost cartoonish, but for some reason it works. The gun feels very solid in your hand and the speakers produce the *pew pew* sounds with decent volume. Each gun also has a headphone jack on the backs if you want to still hear the sounds but play a silent game. Stealthy!

See what we mean? FLAT

The Assault Striker SR 143 is much larger, complete with sockets for accessories. After putting in your four AA batteries and turning on the gun, a robotic voice prompts you to place your finger on the ID scanner. The buttons on the gun are flat; you simply need to place your finger on them to adjust volume, change team, or choose your weapon.

This gun also keeps track of your ammunition, and different kinds of shots burn ammo at different rates. To reload, simply hit a button on the bottom of the gun where a clip would sit on a more traditional weapon. Lights on the side of the gun will give you an idea of how many rounds you have left.

Gun demo

To play a match, you turn on two or more guns, make sure you're both set to different teams, and begin to shoot at each other. Each gun has sensors on the front, so shooting at someone will also leave you vulnerable to attack. Shooting the sides of the guns, where the LEDs show your team color, can also produce a hit, although that's not quite a sure thing depending on the range. You don't have to be aiming exactly down the barrel of your opponent's gun to hit them, so spray and pray is often a valid strategy. Some of the weapons also increase the spread of your shot, allowing you to hit multiple targets at once.

Playing with two guns, without any accessories, is a whole lot of fun. My son and I had a great time running around the yard firing at each other, although you have to rely on your opponent reporting in when they get hit. Annoyingly, you are given no indication when you score a hit on your opponent, so it can be tricky to figure out when your shots are effective.

The guns also come with separate light-up plastic sensors that detect when they're shot and change color depending on what team your gun is representing. This is fun for a few minutes in terms of target practice, but you don't have to be precise to hit the targets, so it's hardly a test of skill.

Since I was sent three of these for the review, I made up a game where I would hide them around the house and see how quickly my son could sweep the area and shoot them all, changing their color to his. I would put one in the corner, one under a desk, one on the door he has to open to get into the next room—it was like a game of hide-and-seek that taught basic tactical strategies. I wish my Dad had taught me to always check the corners and how to sweep and clear a room... but I digress.

We also played many rounds of laser tag in our back yard. The range at which the weapons will pick up a hit is around 100 feet, but if you're out of direct sunlight or in the dark, that figure goes up. There are some really annoying bits here for the "serious" player, such as the fact there is no tactile feedback at all. I would have loved to feel a shake when I was hit, instead of having to check for the red LEDs to see how my health was holding up. And with no way to know if you have hit your opponent (without them telling you), there's simply no way to tell if you're firing well.

There's also no scoring system. If you take someone's health down to zero, their gun flashes and they can't fire, but hitting the shield and trigger at the same time causes a "respawn"—and there's no record of how many times someone has respawned. You can set up your own rules and ways of playing, but you'll need to trust all the players to be honest about their own play.

And that won't happen when you're playing with 9 year-olds. I told my kid that if I caught him respawning without telling me, he would never eat candy again, but he knew it was a hollow threat. A more formal set of rules would be welcome.

60 Reader Comments

These sound amazing. And about one revision away from earth-shatteringly awesome. There is no reason that they could not implement some of the missing features in future releases, so long as the product line sticks around.

With the absence of a formal scoring system, I'm thinking of the following for an office conflict:

Two teams, using the guns and the remote sensors. The sensors are set to a neutral color, and are placed in known locations that require the player to get close (no spray from across the shipping floor and hit the target). One team's goal is to defend these targets, the other team's goal is to take each of the objectives.

If you get "killed," you have to travel back to base before you can recharge (maybe with an enforced wait period?) before you can head back into the field.

Hard time limit on a round, so there is a way for the defenders to win. Each team has one "Captain" that is allowed to use both guns (if one gets taken out, he can switch to the other. Both have to be taken out before he has to recharge). This captain should help break sieges.

We lease our office, and there is a section that is abandoned... hmmm...

Too bad they don't have a grenade, either (sprays a weak IR spray, so you can take cover from it, but can clear a cubical). My old set from when I was a kid had one, along with a "robot" you could fight single player (the robot was on wheels and would slowly move around randomly, but it would shoot back).

So you don't really specify: is this IR based, light based, actual laser based....? I used to have the Photon Force set as a kid and I remember my mother taking a picture of me and my bother in the rigs. As soon as the flash went off all of our little sensors went nuts registering hits.

You say that there are gun modes that spread out the shots, so I'm guessing it's not laser based. Also, do you know if you can shoot people on your own team?

When I was a young teen maybe, I can't remember when I picked them up, I had a set of toys a lot like these.

There was a chest and back piece all players would wear and you could be shot on either. I don't think you could ever be shot on the gun itself. The biggest problem was the distance you could play outside. If you were in the sun they just didn't work well

Otherwise, if you were shot your chest plate would blink and make sound. If you were shot enough it would go crazy to show that your out.

This seems like a good evolution of the idea for sure but still likely with most of the same difficulty. I'm very surprised that they were able to integrate so many FPS ideas into it without really working on the functionality or common sense parts.

I seem to remember having a laser tag kit in the early 90's that actually worked together to produce a cohesive game. The vests would light up and make noises - and so would the gun that shot the vests. Of course, that set was riddled with durability and reliability problems, but it seems like this set is step backwards. I was pretty excited seeing the review, but the details of these things leave me wanting.

I also like the "hitting something with a physical object" theme. But then you would need to rely on humans to keep scores, track health, and force respawns. Ammo would also be an issue, especially if you are like me and tend to overshoot into the neighbor's yard.

So, so close. With the right API, mod tools, and interactions between components, this could have a lot of potential. You could even make a TF2-esque mod, with medi-guns and control points sensing vest proximity. The cool thing is the tech is already there*. By the time my sons are old enough to play, there will probably be something on the market.

Seems like it was constructed to a price point. The "flat" guns with graphics instead of molded contours, lack of hit feedback, lack of rumble on firing or being hit, all scream "cheap." It doesn't sound like too much fun to me, especially when I think back to how almost every. single. game. of "guns" in my youth would devolve into yelling matches of "I hit you" "no you didn't".

Seems like it was constructed to a price point. The "flat" guns with graphics instead of molded contours, lack of hit feedback, lack of rumble on firing or being hit, all scream "cheap." It doesn't sound like too much fun to me, especially when I think back to how almost every. single. game. of "guns" in my youth would devolve into yelling matches of "I hit you" "no you didn't".

It sounds like a big step back from what we were able to do with the original Lazer Tag in the old days, with a little hacking.

Those had the chest sensors, which we immediately hated because you couldn't shoot someone in the back (or often from the side). So the best defense was to turn away from the attacker. So we bought the hat sensors, which provided a 360 degree hit vulnerability. The hats were too small for adults, so we removed them and mounted them on camo baseball caps. That solved most of the hit problems, you could be shot from any side, including above. Also, if I recall, the sensors would make a sound when hit, and light up. So there was never any doubt when you were hitting someone.

We also opened up the guns and removed the little switch that supposedly altered the range or spread or something. All it was was a piece of plastic with a hole in it, so it only attenuated the IR signal and reduced the effective range.

A couple of us even bought the big white Lazer Tag rifles, which looked cool but didn't actually perform much better than the pistols. And the white stood out like crazy in the woods where we played. So we painted them with camo paint and they looked awesome if nothing else.

So, to my mind, an effective modern system has to have global hit notification (at least a beep and a light), an alarm when you are "killed" and 360 degree hit detection. If we were able to get all that working then (with no electronic modifications), there's no reason they couldn't do it now.

garapito wrote:Not knock on Kuchera Jr. (cute kid, that one) but when are we going to get some pics of that fox Casey modeling guns and what not??"

Official Moderator Warning for (sexist and objectifying content): Please adhere to the Posting Guidelines. Questions about moderation must be directed to mods@arstechnica.com, and not posted to this thread. If you have received an Official Warning, please pay special attention to how these accumulate"

1. To wide of a spray. They all shoot like remote controls for a TV, not lasers.

2. Too few or oddly placed sensors. Getting shot in the gun and dying is dumb, we all know it takes a dome hit or a chest shot IRL. (YES, LASER TAG IS VERY VERY IRL) Again, this is usually because of the wide spray of the gun in question, making the question of which body part you got hit moot.

3. No penalty for getting hit. I think a nice shock from a vest that knocks you to the ground would be awesome for adults. We can call it Tazer Tag.

If these three things are fixed, id be down to invest in such a setup. Until, there is no reason not to buy airsoft for the same price., and twice the adreneline.

Ben, you need to hit up one of the higher-end laser-tag MFGs. I kinda poked around, but ISTR there's one that makes gear in the shape of M16s, P90s, etc. Less kid-friendly, but might be more Arsian-friendly.

(I kinda looked into it a while back, but got distracted and never finished up. If it was paintball-level expense it'd be nice for "teamwork excersizes" at work. )

Sounds almost perfect. If they could add in an "alert" sound when you make a hit (a high pitch beep maybe) and a short tone (maybe a long beep) when you've been "killed" that would be nice. Combine that with a vest that communicates with the gun and you have me sold.

3. No penalty for getting hit. I think a nice shock from a vest that knocks you to the ground would be awesome for adults. We can call it Tazer Tag.

lol

Though in most "modern" laser tag games the gun should run out of ammo or not be able to shoot for 15 seconds or similar. I've also seen variations where if you were hit you couldn't shoot back until you made it to a "recharge station".

So yeah, this is cheaper than Ubisoft's Battle Tag (http://battle-tag.us.ubi.com/), but I think if I was going to pick between the two, I'd go for Battle Tag.

My son's 11th birthday is coming up and I'm leaning towards the Battle Tag system. Cheapest I can find the Battle Tag starter kit (2 player) is $130 from Unbisoft's online store. I like the idea of ammo packs and med packs you have to pick up and use via RFID.

Back in the day, we shot each other in the eyes with nerf megadarts and we liked it.

judging laster tag experiences as a kid, nerf darts are better.you start to learn how to "game" the laser system and it spirals out of control to not being fun.

there is more satisfaction with hitting something with a physical object imo.

This. I remember back in the day (summer of '96, IIRC), a friend of mine got me into a game of laser tag outside his parent's apartment complex. No matter how many times I shot him, his damn vest thing wouldn't register the hit.

Not until he won the match 70-something to 0, did I learn that he "forgot" to put batteries in his vest.

3. No penalty for getting hit. I think a nice shock from a vest that knocks you to the ground would be awesome for adults. We can call it Tazer Tag.

If these three things are fixed, id be down to invest in such a setup. Until, there is no reason not to buy airsoft for the same price., and twice the adreneline.

Dear god. I've never been tazed before, but I don't think I'd like that game. A simple vibration would suffice.

I should have elaborated, my bad. I was invisioning a SLIGHT and BRIEF shock, ideally situational and tied to a central power pack on the back, ie. One on each calf with a sensor band around the leg to stimulate the calf muscle into a brief but visibly noticable spasm that causes a half second loss of limb use. A similar system for the arms, head, and torso. Programable points per limbs, torso and head, with the option of a "perma-mode" that sends a zap one a second to the limb to mimic permanent loss of use for the round. Again, all at not taser levels, just the min to cause discomfort and visible struggles with use. A shot to the gun should disable the weapon. And whoever mention IR knives is the fucking man.

And dude. Vibrators are litterally, for pussies. Real men want consiquences for failure, especially in the area of simulated combat.